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authority records
1979 -

The Amata Transition House Society is a non-profit organization that provides safe shelter to women and their children who are experiencing, or are at risk of experiencing, violence and abuse. Amata has been serving the Quesnel and area community since 1979. While staying in the home, women are provided with safe shelter, food, clothing, and other essentials. Amata also provides referrals, information, and support to help women make informed decisions about their lives. Amata is open to all women, with or without children, who have witnessed or experienced abuse in relationships.

Services and programs provided by the Amata over the years include a childminding program for women living at the house, the Children Who Witness Abuse group counselling program, and the Pheonix Program, which is a support and educational program for women who have experienced domestic violence and/or abuse. Amata also helps women via their Outreach Program, which facilitates access to local social services. Through this program, women living at the Amata Transition House can get assistance with filling out forms or have someone accompany them to appointments and meetings.

MacKinnon, Alexander Duncan
Person · [1865?]-1949

The Rev. A.D. MacKinnon was a pioneer minister of the Presbyterian Church in British Columbia. He was born in Nova Scotia, attended theological college at Queens, and came to the Kootenay region of B.C. as a student in 1893. He was ordained in 1896 in Kamloops and served at Quesnel, where he opened the first Presbyterian Church in the Cariboo. He later served at Kitsilano Presbyterian Church in Vancouver (1913-1920) Williams Lake (1921-1941) and Peachland (1941-1946). Like many Presbyterian ministers of his generation, MacKinnon joined The United Church of Canada during church union in 1925.

Maureen Trotter
1949 -

Maureen Trotter was born in 1949. She grew up in Alonsa, Manitoba, an unincorporated community west of Lake Manitoba with a population of approximately 150 people. Trotter completed her undergraduate degree in sociology and psychology at the University of Manitoba in 1970. She obtained a Master’s Degree in counselling psychology at the University of British Columbia in 1976. Before moving to Quesnel, Trotter spent time living in Winnipeg, Toronto, south of Ottawa, and Vancouver where she worked for a youth camp, a young offender group home, an organization for people with physical disabilities, a minimum security detention centre, and a drug and alcohol treatment program.

Trotter and her partner moved to Quesnel in 1978. Inspired by the back to land movement, they spent their first few years in town building up their property, constructing a stack-wall house, and starting a family. Trotter began working for the School District #28 (Quesnel) and the College of New Caledonia in 1979 on grant-funded contracts for coordinating women’s daytime programs and job employment training programs. She was later hired by the College to develop and teach a non-traditional trades training program for women, a native social development worker program, and a career readiness program. In 1990, Trotter was hired as an instructor for the College’s social service worker program and the university transfer department, where she taught sociology. She held this position until her 2008 retirement.

Trotter is well known in the Quesnel community for her volunteer work for various feminist, social justice, peace, and environmental organizations. She was a founding member of the Quesnel Women’s Resources Centre and was also involved with work at the Amata Transition House and the B.C. Steering Committee of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. Trotter’s community service has also extended to the Quesnel Peace Action Group; the Quesnel Environmental Society; the Quesnel Child, Youth, and Family Network; the Quesnel Social Justice Coalition; the Quesnel Affordable Housing Action Committee; and the Quesnel Climate Change Committee.

1981 -

The Quesnel Women’s Resource Centre Society (QWRC) is a collective that provides women-centred services to the Quesnel community. The goals of the QWRC are: (1) to provide women with access to resources, counselling, and self-help programs that assist them with life choices; (2) to actively address all forms of violence against women at all levels of the Quesnel community; (3) to work towards the elimination of poverty; (4) to challenge sexism and all forms of discrimination against women including racism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia at all levels of the Quesnel community; and (5) to enhance the status of women by addressing issues of importance such as universally accessible child care and the right to equal pay for work of equal value.

The QWRC began in 1979 in the Quesnel Safeway parking lot as a small group of women came together to apply for a grant. The QWRC opened its doors in December 1981 at 466 Reid Street, later moving to its current location at 680 McLean Street in 1992.

Services and programs provided over the years include the Strawberry Patch Childminding Centre, the Kool Kids Clothing Store, Stopping the Violence sexual abuse counselling, the Quesnel sexual assault response line, Uma Yaz student-focused daycare facility, and the Nobody’s Perfect parenting program. The Centre also organizes educational programs for job training, self-esteem, assertiveness, anger management, and respectful relationships. Programs are advertised in a newsletter published by the QWRC four times a year.

The Centre helps organize public events including International Women’s Day, Take Back the Night, and the December 6th Montreal Memorial. The QWRC also maintains a resource library on subjects such as addiction, anger, equality, health, justice, self-help, self-esteem, trauma, and violence against women.